Confessions of a Male Escort
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A/N - Some people seem to think Harry isn't the badass assassin that he seemed to be in the beginning of this fic. Hopefully this chapter will change your minds a little. But also remember that Harry killed humans. He's never really come up against most of the things the Winchesters go after. Especially Demons. Give him time. He'll adapt soon enough! :D
Chapter Thirteen
27th November, 2008. Mitchell, SD
Dean looked up from the papers he was reading when Sam groaned and slowly sat up from where he had been sleeping, squashed into the backseat of the Impala. Dean chuckled quietly as he saw the marks Sam's jacket had left on his cheek, and his hair wasn't helping his image in the least.
"Time s'it?" Sam muttered, rubbing his knuckles in his eyes, like he had since he was a baby. Dean wondered just how that didn't hurt, but he'd never actually bothered to ask. He had, when he was younger, tried it himself. And had ended up poking himself in his eye.
"Er… three fifteen in the morning."
"Harry not back yet?"
"The guy paid for five hours. He's not due back until four," Dean reminded him, discreetly looking over the papers he was looking through to see what his brother's reaction was. Sam hadn't exactly been quiet about how he didn't think Harry going back to work was a good idea.
They were currently sitting in the car just outside of the town that Harry had his first job in. According to Harry, the angels had somehow manipulated people in certain towns to think Harry was a high class escort. Something Harry was very happy about because apparently it meant he could charge the rates he had back in London. Dean was slowly making his way through Harry's journals and had choked a little when he was given Harry's price list.
He also never needed to know what coprophilia was.
Harry's client for this night was, thankfully, in the town not too far from Bobby's so they hadn't had to rely on the angels to take them there. Dean and Sam had decided that they'd just stay in the car near to Harry and wait for him to call Dean to collect him instead of booking a motel room for the night. Dean hadn't said anything, but he felt Sam had only wanted to stay in the car because he didn't want to be too far from Harry.
Dean loved his little brother. Hell, he'd died for him. But even he could admit that in this case, Sam was acting like a jerk to Harry. Dean didn't actually see what Harry saw in Sam, but he knew that Sam didn't deserve Harry.
"Did he say what this guy wanted?" Sam asked, looking at Dean curiously. Harry and Dean had both agreed that Sam didn't need to know anything about Harry's appointments. And Harry had made it so that only Dean could read his journals.
"I took the call and made the appointment, so yeah, I know what the john asked for."
"Harry doesn't call them johns," Sam pointed out, making Dean roll his eyes.
"Harry's a Brit. And professional. And high class. He calls them clients. Who cares? I call 'em johns."
"So what did he ask for?" Sam asked, getting a narrow eyed look from Dean.
"Why do you want to know, Sam?"
"What? I want to know so I can make sure Harry's fine afterwards! I care, Dean!" Sam exclaimed, making Dean feel a surprising surge of anger. He admitted to himself that at times he was ridiculously over protective and sometimes blind when it came to Sam. But Dean was starting to see Harry as a close friend, maybe even another little brother. And he didn't like to see anyone dick about with his brothers.
"You care? You're joking, right?" Dean asked him with a sneer, shaking his head and looking down at the papers on his lap instead of having to look at Sam.
"What does that mean, Dean?"
"You know what that means."
"Just say it!"
"Fine! You're a dick to Harry. You don't deserve him. He watches over you, pretty much sells his soul to Heaven for you and you thank him by ignoring him and sleeping with a freaking demon instead! Yeah, real nice, Sam. Real caring," Dean muttered, finally getting what had been bugging him about his brother since he'd realised just what Harry had done for Sam.
"You don't understand, Dean. I'm not…"
"Not what? A jerk? Messing with Harry's head? What?"
"I'm not sleeping with Ruby!" Sam snapped, shocking Dean because he honestly had thought his brother had been sleeping with the demon, because if he wasn't, then what was he doing?
"What? Then what… what are you doing with her?"
"She's… she's helping me. Giving me another option to kill Lilith. She wants Lilith dead just as much as we do, Dean," Sam admitted with a shrug. Dean just stared at him, not believing in the least that Ruby had their best interests at heart.
"You need to stop, Sammy."
"What? No, Dean! She wants to help!"
"Really, Sammy? Because her way of helping is going to get you killed. You know Ardifiel will kill you before he thinks you totally mess up and end up dragging Harry down to Hell with you."
"What?!"
"Surely you know, Sam! Harry's fate is all on your shoulders! I don't know the exact details of his task, but I know that if he fails, then he goes to Hell. And I know it's got something to do with you!" Dean told him, not honestly believing Sam could be so oblivious and not know about Harry's deal.
"Why would he agree to that?"
"Because he freaking likes you! No idea why, but he does. So what you're doing with Ruby? It's just signing his one way ticket to Hell. And Sam, you're going down with him. Don't be stupid, Sammy. I get that Ruby has somehow convinced you that she's helping you, but surely you can see that what you're doing isn't the right route!" Dean urged, wishing that his brother finally got a clue and realised Ruby was nothing but bad news.
"I… I don't know…" Sam muttered, rubbing a hand through his hair and looking troubled. Dean just hoped that meant Sam was at least going to consider just what his actions might do. Before Dean could say anything else to Sam, his new phone started to buzz in his pocket and Dean quickly took it out.
"Yeah?"
"I'm done. I'll wait outside the hotel for you, okay?"
"Yeah, yeah. We'll be about ten minutes. You okay?"
"Freaking knackered, but yeah, I'm fine. I'm out of practice! Is Sam awake?"
"Yeah, he's awake. Why? You want to speak to him?" Dean asked, glancing over at Sam who had perked up and was looking at the phone in his hands like it would instantly transport him to Harry or something.
"No, just get him to sit in the front. I'm just gonna collapse in the back. Did you find a hunt?"
"Okay, I'll tell him. And yeah, I've found a few that might be interesting."
"Cool. Have you slept at all?"
"Ah, no. Not yet."
"Hmm. You need to sleep, Dean. Talk to Cas about it, see if he can help keep the nightmares away for a night or two. Now, hurry up. It's like a witch's tit out here!" Dean chuckled when Harry hung up on him, and then turned to look at Sam.
"Dude, you're gonna have to move up front. Harry said he's gonna just go to sleep in the back when we pick him up."
"Is he alright?"
"He's fine, Sam. Just tired. Now shift it. I don't want Harry bitching at us for taking too long. On the way to get him, you can choose which hunt to go to next. I've narrowed it down to these two," Dean told him, handing Sam the notes he'd made on two possible hunts and leaning out of the way when Sam climbed over the seat and into the front. "Dude! Watch the leather!"
"It's fine, Dean. Now, let's go get Harry."
28th November, 2008. Stratton, NE
"Boy, three bedrooms, two baths and one homicide. This place is gonna sell like hotcakes," Dean said sarcastically with a whistle as they walked into the house that Dean and Sam had claimed possibly had a spirit. Harry had no idea what the details of the hunt were considering he'd slept for most of the day, but he'd been given the run down when he'd woken.
Basically an old man had been hacked to death in a locked room inside a locked house. And there were no signs of forced entry. Given Harry wasn't too sure wizards were around America in great numbers, he had to agree with Dean that it was probably a ghost. Spirit. Whatever.
His suggestion that it was a pissed off, over-worked and hungry brownie was met with contempt so he just silently decided to agree with the Winchesters. Admittedly, they did know a bit more about these sort of things than he did. Even if the thought of a pissed off brownie did amuse him.
Harry wandered into the kitchen behind Sam and Dean, looking around the slightly run down house and silently wondering what American's seemed to have against brick.
"Hey, check this out!" Dean called out, giving Harry something to do instead of just looking like he knew what they were looking for. Though looking like he knew what people were talking about was something Harry had become very good at in his life. Dean knocked on a space of blank wall when Harry walked over to him, letting them hear that it was hollow behind the wall. "Huh."
"It's probably a dumbwaiter. All these old houses had them," Sam told them knowingly, reminding Harry startlingly of Hermione for a moment.
"Know-it-all," Dean muttered, getting a grin from Harry, who then coughed and looked away, trying for innocent when Sam turned and frowned at Dean.
"What?"
"What?"
"You said…"
"What?"
"Never mind," Sam muttered, shooting Dean one last suspicious look before turning his attention back to the room at large. Harry glanced over at Dean and grinned at him, shaking his head in amusement when Dean just grinned unrepentantly back at him.
"So… is it a ghost?" Harry asked as he followed Sam out of the kitchen, Dean behind him, and making their way up the stairs and into a bedroom.
"A spirit," Sam corrected him, almost automatically.
"Meh, spirit. Ghost. Potayto, potahto," Harry muttered, then paused and frowned. "Who says potahto anyway?"
"No one. Freak. And don't be mean to Sammy. You know he doesn't like it when we're not PC about the shit we hunt. The PC term is spirit. I'm sure there was a big movement where they petitioned against being called ghosts," Dean told him, grinning when Sam huffed but didn't even bother to look back at them. Harry chuckled and looked around the empty bedroom.
"Right. So to avoid upsetting them, I'll call them spirits. Not that burning their remains won't upset them, mind. By the way, what are we looking for?" Harry finally asked, deciding to just bite the bullet and see if either brother could actually tell him.
"Well… normally any kind of clue that it was a spirit that killed the guy," Sam admitted, looking around the bare room when Harry just raised an eyebrow at him, wondering just what clues they would find in a bare, freshly repainted house.
"Yeah… only there are no bloodstains, a fresh coat of paint and nothing else to let us know for sure. Basically, we got nothing," Dean admitted with a shrug, looking over at Sam when he brought out an EMF reader that was beeping crazily.
"I thought we'd agreed that I messed with those things and so they were pretty much useless. Huh. I wonder if the angels mess with them too. Bet they make them light up like Christmas!" Harry said with a wide grin, eyeing the EMF reader in Sam's hands speculatively, which made Sam glare at him and practically hug the thing to his chest protectively. Harry had no idea what Sam thought he was going to do to it.
"Yeah - there's also power lines," Dean pointed out through the window. Harry grinned at Sam's disappointed look and then walked over and opened a closet door.
"Gah!" Harry leapt back from the door as though electrocuted and collided with Sam, who had been walking over to him and sending them both to the floor, much to Dean's amusement.
"Dude, you're scared of a dolls head?" Harry just glared at him as he detangled himself from Sam and stood up, Sam following him and rubbing his back where he'd hit it.
"Look at it!"
"Well… it is disturbing," Dean admitted, tilting his head to the side as though to give him a different view of it. Possibly one that was less disturbing if that was even possible.
"Think it got left behind?" Sam asked while Harry just wandered back over to the window and squinted when he saw something moving closer.
"By who? Unless Bill Gibson liked to play with doll heads." Harry assumed Bill Gibson was the unfortunate bloke that had been killed, but was far more interested in what was heading towards them to bother asking.
"Um… guys? We have company," Harry called out, getting the attention of both brothers, who came over to look out the window next to him.
"I thought you said this place was still for sale!" Dean accused to Sam, glaring at the moving truck and car heading down the lone road towards the house. Harry still thought that if you lived in a house so far from any civilisation, then you sort of deserved to be murdered horrifically.
"Apparently it's not," Sam said with a shrug. Sounding shockingly blasé considering they were just about to be caught trespassing.
One day the Winchester's were going to get him deported, he just knew it.
"Right, so we wing it then?" Harry asked as he followed the other two out of the room and down the stairs.
"Pretty much," Dean agreed as they left the house and walked down the front steps.
"Can I help you?" A man asked them, looking highly unimpressed in Harry's opinion.
"Hi. Are you the new owner?" Sam asked. Harry amused himself with what any of them would say if it turned out these people were a family of squatters.
"Yeah. You guys are…?"
"These are Mr Stanwyk and Mr Dolan. I'm Mr Babar. County Code Enforcement," Dean told them, and Harry wondered just where Dean came up with some of their aliases. He was starting to consider vetoing all of Dean's suggestions and giving a few himself. Though at least he wasn't 'Mr Bambi'…
"We had the building inspected last week. Is there a problem?"
"Asbestos in the walls, gas leak - yeah, I'd say we got a problem," Sam told them, whilst Harry vaguely hoped they were wrong about the asbestos thing. And the gas leak thing actually.
"Asbestos? Meaning what?"
"Meaning unless you want your family to develop asbestosis, then this house is uninhabitable and you should find somewhere else to stay for the next couple of days," Harry said, vaguely remembering one of his past clients talking about asbestosis and hoping it was what he thought it was. This would get very uncomfortable, very quickly, if it turned out that asbestosis was an STD or something.
"Whoa, whoa, whoa. You're saying we can't stay here?" The man Harry assumed was the father said, obviously not one who listened to instructions because Harry was pretty sure he did say they couldn't stay there. Maybe the man was a little slow.
"It's a health hazard. You don't want to," Dean told him, trying to sound understanding but firm.
"Hold up. We just drove four hundred miles." The other adult male in the group walked over, Harry eyeing him up and down and then dismissing him. Not someone who would pay for his services. Or someone who clearly listened.
"There's a motel just down the road. 'Til this gets cleaned up, I suggest you stay there," Dean told them, not leaving them any room to argue.
"All right. And what if we don't?"
"Asbestosis isn't a laughing matter, sir. People have died from it. Children being more at risk than adults. You want to risk your family's lives just because you don't want to stray on the side of caution and spend another night in a motel?" Harry really hoped asbestosis was what he thought. And lethal. He should have maybe thought about this line of lying before going ahead with it.
"One night. One night, and I'll take care of everything, ASAP, I promise," the older man said to them, turning to look at his family, who really didn't look all that impressed with his decision. Given they didn't know Harry was lying, they were disturbingly flippant with their health.
"Yeah, you do that," Dean agreed, looking at Sam and Dean then back to the family.
"Another motel? Awesome, Dad. I hope this one has hooker sheets, like the last one." Harry and Dean both shot the daughter (or kidnapped female minor, who was Harry to assume?) a slightly insulted look. Though probably for different reasons.
"Danny!" Harry looked around for whoever Danny might be and watched as the younger son (or yet another kidnapped minor) ran back over to his family with the dog and then got in the car with his family.
Harry stood with Sam and Dean watching them drive away and gave a small sigh of relief before turning back to face the brothers and see if they knew what to do next.
"Asbestosis?"
"What? It's a thing! It's exists! I didn't make it up!" Harry said, not admitting that he had no idea what it was.
"Right. Well, whatever, it worked," Dean begrudgingly admitted, then he glanced at the house behind them. "So we got nothing here. I say we head over to the woman that found the body. The cleaner, right?"
"She's not a suspect, yeah? Like… Leon-style cleaner?" Harry asked with a grin, following Dean and Sam back to the Impala.
"Dude, we're cutting off your TV watching privileges."
"What did the room look like when you found it, Mrs Curry?" They had headed back to where Mr Gibson's house cleaner lived in order to see if she could tell them something that might tell them on who it was that killed the man. Not that Harry was totally convinced it was a spirit but even he admitted that was only skeptic just to be awkward.
"I already told the local boys, there was blood everywhere," Mrs Curry told them, sounding a little annoyed to be questioned by them. Not that Harry blamed her.
"And Mr Gibson - where was he?"
"Everywhere," Mrs Curry told them, not sounding quite as upset as Harry would think someone who had just found their employer eviscerated would sound.
"How long have you been cleaning Mr Gibson's house?" Sam asked her looking for all the world like he was taking notes, though Harry suspected he was more likely playing noughts and crosses. Sam struck him as the type to play that by himself.
"About five years," she told him, looking at Harry curiously - probably because Harry had decided to stay quiet during this as he really had no idea what to ask her that would give them a heads up - and Harry just smiled at her weakly.
"So you knew him pretty well."
"Well, not really well. He was real private. Not the easiest man. Not that I blame him."
"Ooh. What do you mean?" Harry asked, finally finding something he could ask that wouldn't make Dean or Sam want to thump him for possibly setting them back. He still stood strong that asbestosis was a thing.
"His wife dies in childbirth. Daughter hangs herself in the attic twenty years later. I'd be bitter, too. I think I got some pictures," she told them before she wandered off into another room to go and fetch them for them. Before any of them could possibly say anything about the case, she had come back and was handing the photos to Harry. He had no idea why him, possibly because he asked the question that led to her getting them. Or she just liked him more. He didn't blame her. He was pretty charming.
"Cheers. Would it be okay if we kept these?" Harry asked her, deciding that he should at least be a little courteous towards her, if only so she would end up liking him more than Dean. Charming bastard normally out did him on charming their targets.
"Suit yourself."
"Now, why'd the daughter kill herself?" Sam asked her before Harry could actually thank her, which made Harry glare at the back of Sam's head, much to Dean's amusement.
"I don't know. That was before my time."
"Did you ever notice anything odd in the house when you were cleaning it?" Dean asked her and Harry rolled his eyes at Dean's incredible subtlety.
"Like what?"
"Like, you know, like lights going on and off, things not being where you left them…" Dean prompted, trailing off and watching Mrs Curry for any hint that she knew what he was talking about. Much to Harry's shock she actually did.
"Maybe there was one thing."
"What's that?" Harry asked, completely unable to stop himself due to the shock of her actually answering Dean and not just throwing them out of her house for wasting her time.
"Well, sometimes, I thought I heard like a… rustling in the walls."
"Like a rat?" Dean asked, looking like he fervently hoped she would disagree with him. Harry grinned at this little insight to something Dean might be scared of and mentally stored it in the back of his mind.
"Yeah." Harry held back a cackle when Dean shuddered at that.
"Must have been huge rats out there, huh?" Harry asked eagerly, grin widening when Dean caught on to what he was doing and glared at him.
"Wouldn't know. Never saw any," Mrs Curry told him with a shrug.
"Do you happen to know where Mrs Gibson and her daughter were buried?" Sam asked her, dragging her attention away from Harry and Dean, who were mouthing petty insults at one another.
"They were both cremated." Harry and Dean both stopped insulting one another when they heard Mrs Curry and turned to look at her then looked at Sam, who looked just as flummoxed as they did.
"Right! Well, I think that's everything we need. Thank you for helping us, Mrs Curry," Harry told her with a bright smile, pushing the photos he still had in his hands into his pocket and shaking Mrs Curry's hand. Sam and Dean both did the same before all three of them left the house and headed back to the Impala.
"So…" Harry muttered, glancing from Sam to Dean and then back again, figuring that Sam was going to be the likely one to have an answer on where to go next.
"Yeah. So it probably wasn't the mom or the daughter. Whose ghost was it?" Sam asked, completely ruining Harry's beliefs that he would know what to do and leaving him wondering just what they were going to do then, because he'd never really liked going into anything blind. One thing he'd never liked about the hunts the brothers went on.
"I don't know. But I say we give that place a real once-over and see," Dean said, and they got into the Impala to head back to the house that may or may not be haunted by some unknown dead person.
Dean drove up to the end of the driveway leading to the house and stopped when they saw that there were lights on inside. Harry mentally groaned, wondering why none of them could ever get a break. Together their luck sucked.
"Crap. So, what now?" Dean asked, sitting back in his seat and looking at Sam and then Harry in the back seat. Harry just shrugged and sighed loudly, mentally sending up a plea for a break, until recalling what Yebemiah had told him and realising that right now, no one was listening.
Which was just plain depressing.
"We could tell them the truth," Sam suggested, which got him the snort of contempt it deserved from both Harry and Dean.
"Oh yeah, brilliant idea. We lie to them about their house being lethal and then we tell them that, actually, it's not asbestosis they have to worry about, but a ghost-"
"Spirit."
"Whatever. And, to top it all off, we don't actually know who the dead murderous person is and thus can't actually stop them. Yup. Uh huh. Drive on up, Dean. Let's go get thrown in the nut house."
"Alright, I wasn't actually being serious. No need to be so damn sarcastic about it," Sam muttered, crossing his arms over his chest and slumping down in a sulk. Dean looked at Sam and began to chuckle, shaking his head.
"Fine, fine. I'm sorry for being too British. Happy? So what are we going to do then?"
"Sit here and wait? Spirit-dude is gonna show itself at some point, right? And when it does, I'm betting someone screams," Dean said with a nod.
"My bet's on the girl. She looked like she'd scream if a particularly large spider looked at her wrong. A spirit is bound to make her scream," Harry said, looking at the house and mentally urging someone to scream.
Over an hour later and Dean suddenly jerked in his seat, which got the attention of Sam and Harry who had been having a quiet game of hangman whilst Dean had dozed. Dean pulled a phone out of his pocket, telling them what it was that had woken Dean up.
"Yeah?"
Harry glanced at Sam, who shrugged, and then looked back at Dean to see if he could work out who it was that was ringing them.
"Yeah, yeah he is. What are you asking for?" Harry perked up, noting that Sam scowled as they both realised Dean was talking to a possible client for Harry at the same time. "Yeah, you're gonna have to email the information you want him to know to the address on the card. … Total? No more than two thousand. … Yeah, he charges extra for knowing background information. … Okay, seven thirty? Got ya. He'll see you tomorrow night then."
Harry watched Dean hang up the phone, glancing to see Sam also had all his attention on Dean as well. Harry had gotten his notebook out so he could take down the relevant information he'd need to know. He'd gotten a new notebook and it felt depressingly empty of both jobs and useful numbers that his last one had in abundance.
"So?"
"Yeah, you got a background date with a Jeannie Minks in Seattle tomorrow night, so you're gonna have to get one of the angels to take you there. Let's just hope we're done with this hunt by then."
"Pretty sure you'll be able to cope without me if we aren't," Harry pointed out lightly as he wrote down the details and then looked back at Dean. "She say she was going to email me what I need to know?"
"Nah, she said she could tell you the main bits that you'd need to know. You're taking her to a work meal or something. You're to go to her house and the meal isn't until eight. So you've got half an hour to get to know her," Dean told him with a shrug, glancing over at the house, from where there hadn't been a peep all night, then back to look at Harry again.
"Ah, it'll be a doddle then," Harry muttered with a nod, making a note to call Ardifiel or Castiel, whichever one came to him. He hoped one of them did as he didn't really feel all too comfortable calling for Yebemiah. A feeling he was quite aware didn't exactly make sense.
He was interrupted in his musings, however, when there was a scream from the house. Dean jerked into action, starting the car and driving it down the road and pulling up in front of the house. All three then jumped out of the car and up to the front door, Dean knocking on it.
"We heard screams. What's going on?" Dean demanded, pushing his way into the house as soon as the older man opened it. Sam and Harry quickly followed him inside, Harry closing the door behind him as a sign of good manners.
"Oh, you three! Did you touch my daughter?" The man who'd opened the door to them demanded, making Sam, Dean and Harry all pause and stare at him like he was insane.
"What? No!"
"Who are you guys?"
"Relax, please. You have a ghost!" Harry told them, ignoring Sam's mutter of 'spirit' under his breath and instead focusing on the strange looks he was now getting.
"A ghost."
"I told you!" The daughter whined, and Harry bit his tongue not to grin and say he'd told them about who it would be to scream. He knew she didn't have a strong stomach.
"It's the girl!" The son yelled, getting all of their attention. Harry could have sworn Sam had once told him that cremated people generally, as a rule, didn't come back to haunt you due to the whole lack of remains thing. This case was going to give him a headache, he just knew it.
"Both of you, relax," the dad told his kids before turning to face Harry and the Winchesters. "What are you guys playing?"
"Your family's in danger. You need to get out of the house now," Dean told him urgently, getting back up in the urgency by the lights making a timely exit and plunging them into darkness.
"What the hell?" The other man yelled suddenly, like it wasn't obvious. Harry was glad for the darkness because it meant no one saw him roll his eyes.
"Nobody move!" Dean shouted, making the family in front of them all freeze and stare at him. Harry's eyes had gotten used to the dark quickly, something he had learnt to do back when he was a child locked in a small cupboard.
"Buster!" Harry wondered who the bloody hell Buster was when the son had yelled out, only to get his answer by the sound of howling outside. Harry winced, pretty sure that no healthy animal made sounds like that, but followed anyway when the two men ran outside, followed by Sam and Dean. Harry sighed, figuring he could at least try and keep the Winchesters alive.
"Buster? Buster!"
"What the hell?" Harry caught up with them as they came across a trail of blood on the floor, the younger of the two men shining a torch on it and following it to the moving van. On the side of it, in blood, someone had written 'too late'.
"Buster!" Harry spun around to see that the rest of the family had come outside of the house and wondered if he should try to stop the son from seeing his pet's blood used as a marker pen. Thankfully the boy's father moved to stop the boy from coming over to them.
"Go back inside! Go!"
"We are not the bad guys, but you're in danger," Dean told the father quietly as they watched the rest of the family members standing at the bottom of the porch steps huddled together. Harry kept glancing around them, ever aware that they were in the open and far from safe.
"First thing's first. You got to get your family out of here," Sam told the father and Harry really hoped that the stubborn man actually listened to them this time.
"Head to the motel I was talking about. You'll be safe there," Dean told him as they made their way to where the cars were. Harry following cautiously behind them, not being able to shake the feeling that they were being watched. This hunt wasn't shaping out to be like any of the other hunts he'd been on with either just Sam or both brothers. Though admittedly, they had mostly hunted demons and Harry openly admitted that he had no idea how to deal with demons.
"What are you three gonna do?"
"Oh no! Oh, come on! Come on!!" Dean shouted, not answering the dad. Harry looked over and cursed, seeing the tyres of all the cars had been slashed.
"Dude, the guns are gone. So are the… basically, everything is gone," Sam called from where he'd been looking in the trunk of the car.
"What?! Even mine?!" Harry demanded, running over to Sam and seeing the empty trunk. "Fuckers! What the fuck?! It took George?! George, Sam! That is it, we are burning this mother to the ground!"
"Trucks no good!" The younger of the two men announced, interrupting Harry's raging though giving him a wary look as he walked up to them.
"Both tyres slashed."
"What kind of ghost messed with a man's wheels?!" Dean demanded
"Never mind the damned cars! It took my weapons! Do you know how much money and how many laws I broke to get them? They're like my children! My sharp, pointy, lethal children!" Harry hissed, glaring as he looked around him, still feeling like he was being watched and wanting to find who it was.
"What's going on? What's going on?" The young girl shouted over to them and then suddenly screamed shrilly, pointing to something behind them. "She's there! She's there!"
"Where?" Her mother looked at where she was pointing, Harry also looking and not seeing anything, beginning to get an uncomfortable feeling about it all.
"She was right there in the woods!"
"What's a ghost doing outside?" Dean whispered to them, sounding and looking confused as he glanced to where the girl had seen the ghost.
"Do we want to stay and find out?" Harry asked, keeping a wary look around him for any sign of the ghost or whatever it was. Harry was beginning to think what they were hunting wasn't a ghost.
And it was hunting them back.
"Good point," Dean nodded, then turned back to the scared family huddled in front of the house. "Everybody inside!"
"Are you crazy? We need to get the hell out of here!" The younger man snapped, and Harry was beginning to think they should just learn the names of the family members.
"In what?! The ghost is hunting us! Everybody back inside now! Move it!" Harry yelled back at them, not stopping with his constant searching and knowing that it probably made him paranoid. But it'd helped him survive thus far so he was beyond caring what others thought.
Continue
A/N - Some people seem to think Harry isn't the badass assassin that he seemed to be in the beginning of this fic. Hopefully this chapter will change your minds a little. But also remember that Harry killed humans. He's never really come up against most of the things the Winchesters go after. Especially Demons. Give him time. He'll adapt soon enough! :D
Chapter Thirteen
27th November, 2008. Mitchell, SD
Dean looked up from the papers he was reading when Sam groaned and slowly sat up from where he had been sleeping, squashed into the backseat of the Impala. Dean chuckled quietly as he saw the marks Sam's jacket had left on his cheek, and his hair wasn't helping his image in the least.
"Time s'it?" Sam muttered, rubbing his knuckles in his eyes, like he had since he was a baby. Dean wondered just how that didn't hurt, but he'd never actually bothered to ask. He had, when he was younger, tried it himself. And had ended up poking himself in his eye.
"Er… three fifteen in the morning."
"Harry not back yet?"
"The guy paid for five hours. He's not due back until four," Dean reminded him, discreetly looking over the papers he was looking through to see what his brother's reaction was. Sam hadn't exactly been quiet about how he didn't think Harry going back to work was a good idea.
They were currently sitting in the car just outside of the town that Harry had his first job in. According to Harry, the angels had somehow manipulated people in certain towns to think Harry was a high class escort. Something Harry was very happy about because apparently it meant he could charge the rates he had back in London. Dean was slowly making his way through Harry's journals and had choked a little when he was given Harry's price list.
He also never needed to know what coprophilia was.
Harry's client for this night was, thankfully, in the town not too far from Bobby's so they hadn't had to rely on the angels to take them there. Dean and Sam had decided that they'd just stay in the car near to Harry and wait for him to call Dean to collect him instead of booking a motel room for the night. Dean hadn't said anything, but he felt Sam had only wanted to stay in the car because he didn't want to be too far from Harry.
Dean loved his little brother. Hell, he'd died for him. But even he could admit that in this case, Sam was acting like a jerk to Harry. Dean didn't actually see what Harry saw in Sam, but he knew that Sam didn't deserve Harry.
"Did he say what this guy wanted?" Sam asked, looking at Dean curiously. Harry and Dean had both agreed that Sam didn't need to know anything about Harry's appointments. And Harry had made it so that only Dean could read his journals.
"I took the call and made the appointment, so yeah, I know what the john asked for."
"Harry doesn't call them johns," Sam pointed out, making Dean roll his eyes.
"Harry's a Brit. And professional. And high class. He calls them clients. Who cares? I call 'em johns."
"So what did he ask for?" Sam asked, getting a narrow eyed look from Dean.
"Why do you want to know, Sam?"
"What? I want to know so I can make sure Harry's fine afterwards! I care, Dean!" Sam exclaimed, making Dean feel a surprising surge of anger. He admitted to himself that at times he was ridiculously over protective and sometimes blind when it came to Sam. But Dean was starting to see Harry as a close friend, maybe even another little brother. And he didn't like to see anyone dick about with his brothers.
"You care? You're joking, right?" Dean asked him with a sneer, shaking his head and looking down at the papers on his lap instead of having to look at Sam.
"What does that mean, Dean?"
"You know what that means."
"Just say it!"
"Fine! You're a dick to Harry. You don't deserve him. He watches over you, pretty much sells his soul to Heaven for you and you thank him by ignoring him and sleeping with a freaking demon instead! Yeah, real nice, Sam. Real caring," Dean muttered, finally getting what had been bugging him about his brother since he'd realised just what Harry had done for Sam.
"You don't understand, Dean. I'm not…"
"Not what? A jerk? Messing with Harry's head? What?"
"I'm not sleeping with Ruby!" Sam snapped, shocking Dean because he honestly had thought his brother had been sleeping with the demon, because if he wasn't, then what was he doing?
"What? Then what… what are you doing with her?"
"She's… she's helping me. Giving me another option to kill Lilith. She wants Lilith dead just as much as we do, Dean," Sam admitted with a shrug. Dean just stared at him, not believing in the least that Ruby had their best interests at heart.
"You need to stop, Sammy."
"What? No, Dean! She wants to help!"
"Really, Sammy? Because her way of helping is going to get you killed. You know Ardifiel will kill you before he thinks you totally mess up and end up dragging Harry down to Hell with you."
"What?!"
"Surely you know, Sam! Harry's fate is all on your shoulders! I don't know the exact details of his task, but I know that if he fails, then he goes to Hell. And I know it's got something to do with you!" Dean told him, not honestly believing Sam could be so oblivious and not know about Harry's deal.
"Why would he agree to that?"
"Because he freaking likes you! No idea why, but he does. So what you're doing with Ruby? It's just signing his one way ticket to Hell. And Sam, you're going down with him. Don't be stupid, Sammy. I get that Ruby has somehow convinced you that she's helping you, but surely you can see that what you're doing isn't the right route!" Dean urged, wishing that his brother finally got a clue and realised Ruby was nothing but bad news.
"I… I don't know…" Sam muttered, rubbing a hand through his hair and looking troubled. Dean just hoped that meant Sam was at least going to consider just what his actions might do. Before Dean could say anything else to Sam, his new phone started to buzz in his pocket and Dean quickly took it out.
"Yeah?"
"I'm done. I'll wait outside the hotel for you, okay?"
"Yeah, yeah. We'll be about ten minutes. You okay?"
"Freaking knackered, but yeah, I'm fine. I'm out of practice! Is Sam awake?"
"Yeah, he's awake. Why? You want to speak to him?" Dean asked, glancing over at Sam who had perked up and was looking at the phone in his hands like it would instantly transport him to Harry or something.
"No, just get him to sit in the front. I'm just gonna collapse in the back. Did you find a hunt?"
"Okay, I'll tell him. And yeah, I've found a few that might be interesting."
"Cool. Have you slept at all?"
"Ah, no. Not yet."
"Hmm. You need to sleep, Dean. Talk to Cas about it, see if he can help keep the nightmares away for a night or two. Now, hurry up. It's like a witch's tit out here!" Dean chuckled when Harry hung up on him, and then turned to look at Sam.
"Dude, you're gonna have to move up front. Harry said he's gonna just go to sleep in the back when we pick him up."
"Is he alright?"
"He's fine, Sam. Just tired. Now shift it. I don't want Harry bitching at us for taking too long. On the way to get him, you can choose which hunt to go to next. I've narrowed it down to these two," Dean told him, handing Sam the notes he'd made on two possible hunts and leaning out of the way when Sam climbed over the seat and into the front. "Dude! Watch the leather!"
"It's fine, Dean. Now, let's go get Harry."
28th November, 2008. Stratton, NE
"Boy, three bedrooms, two baths and one homicide. This place is gonna sell like hotcakes," Dean said sarcastically with a whistle as they walked into the house that Dean and Sam had claimed possibly had a spirit. Harry had no idea what the details of the hunt were considering he'd slept for most of the day, but he'd been given the run down when he'd woken.
Basically an old man had been hacked to death in a locked room inside a locked house. And there were no signs of forced entry. Given Harry wasn't too sure wizards were around America in great numbers, he had to agree with Dean that it was probably a ghost. Spirit. Whatever.
His suggestion that it was a pissed off, over-worked and hungry brownie was met with contempt so he just silently decided to agree with the Winchesters. Admittedly, they did know a bit more about these sort of things than he did. Even if the thought of a pissed off brownie did amuse him.
Harry wandered into the kitchen behind Sam and Dean, looking around the slightly run down house and silently wondering what American's seemed to have against brick.
"Hey, check this out!" Dean called out, giving Harry something to do instead of just looking like he knew what they were looking for. Though looking like he knew what people were talking about was something Harry had become very good at in his life. Dean knocked on a space of blank wall when Harry walked over to him, letting them hear that it was hollow behind the wall. "Huh."
"It's probably a dumbwaiter. All these old houses had them," Sam told them knowingly, reminding Harry startlingly of Hermione for a moment.
"Know-it-all," Dean muttered, getting a grin from Harry, who then coughed and looked away, trying for innocent when Sam turned and frowned at Dean.
"What?"
"What?"
"You said…"
"What?"
"Never mind," Sam muttered, shooting Dean one last suspicious look before turning his attention back to the room at large. Harry glanced over at Dean and grinned at him, shaking his head in amusement when Dean just grinned unrepentantly back at him.
"So… is it a ghost?" Harry asked as he followed Sam out of the kitchen, Dean behind him, and making their way up the stairs and into a bedroom.
"A spirit," Sam corrected him, almost automatically.
"Meh, spirit. Ghost. Potayto, potahto," Harry muttered, then paused and frowned. "Who says potahto anyway?"
"No one. Freak. And don't be mean to Sammy. You know he doesn't like it when we're not PC about the shit we hunt. The PC term is spirit. I'm sure there was a big movement where they petitioned against being called ghosts," Dean told him, grinning when Sam huffed but didn't even bother to look back at them. Harry chuckled and looked around the empty bedroom.
"Right. So to avoid upsetting them, I'll call them spirits. Not that burning their remains won't upset them, mind. By the way, what are we looking for?" Harry finally asked, deciding to just bite the bullet and see if either brother could actually tell him.
"Well… normally any kind of clue that it was a spirit that killed the guy," Sam admitted, looking around the bare room when Harry just raised an eyebrow at him, wondering just what clues they would find in a bare, freshly repainted house.
"Yeah… only there are no bloodstains, a fresh coat of paint and nothing else to let us know for sure. Basically, we got nothing," Dean admitted with a shrug, looking over at Sam when he brought out an EMF reader that was beeping crazily.
"I thought we'd agreed that I messed with those things and so they were pretty much useless. Huh. I wonder if the angels mess with them too. Bet they make them light up like Christmas!" Harry said with a wide grin, eyeing the EMF reader in Sam's hands speculatively, which made Sam glare at him and practically hug the thing to his chest protectively. Harry had no idea what Sam thought he was going to do to it.
"Yeah - there's also power lines," Dean pointed out through the window. Harry grinned at Sam's disappointed look and then walked over and opened a closet door.
"Gah!" Harry leapt back from the door as though electrocuted and collided with Sam, who had been walking over to him and sending them both to the floor, much to Dean's amusement.
"Dude, you're scared of a dolls head?" Harry just glared at him as he detangled himself from Sam and stood up, Sam following him and rubbing his back where he'd hit it.
"Look at it!"
"Well… it is disturbing," Dean admitted, tilting his head to the side as though to give him a different view of it. Possibly one that was less disturbing if that was even possible.
"Think it got left behind?" Sam asked while Harry just wandered back over to the window and squinted when he saw something moving closer.
"By who? Unless Bill Gibson liked to play with doll heads." Harry assumed Bill Gibson was the unfortunate bloke that had been killed, but was far more interested in what was heading towards them to bother asking.
"Um… guys? We have company," Harry called out, getting the attention of both brothers, who came over to look out the window next to him.
"I thought you said this place was still for sale!" Dean accused to Sam, glaring at the moving truck and car heading down the lone road towards the house. Harry still thought that if you lived in a house so far from any civilisation, then you sort of deserved to be murdered horrifically.
"Apparently it's not," Sam said with a shrug. Sounding shockingly blasé considering they were just about to be caught trespassing.
One day the Winchester's were going to get him deported, he just knew it.
"Right, so we wing it then?" Harry asked as he followed the other two out of the room and down the stairs.
"Pretty much," Dean agreed as they left the house and walked down the front steps.
"Can I help you?" A man asked them, looking highly unimpressed in Harry's opinion.
"Hi. Are you the new owner?" Sam asked. Harry amused himself with what any of them would say if it turned out these people were a family of squatters.
"Yeah. You guys are…?"
"These are Mr Stanwyk and Mr Dolan. I'm Mr Babar. County Code Enforcement," Dean told them, and Harry wondered just where Dean came up with some of their aliases. He was starting to consider vetoing all of Dean's suggestions and giving a few himself. Though at least he wasn't 'Mr Bambi'…
"We had the building inspected last week. Is there a problem?"
"Asbestos in the walls, gas leak - yeah, I'd say we got a problem," Sam told them, whilst Harry vaguely hoped they were wrong about the asbestos thing. And the gas leak thing actually.
"Asbestos? Meaning what?"
"Meaning unless you want your family to develop asbestosis, then this house is uninhabitable and you should find somewhere else to stay for the next couple of days," Harry said, vaguely remembering one of his past clients talking about asbestosis and hoping it was what he thought it was. This would get very uncomfortable, very quickly, if it turned out that asbestosis was an STD or something.
"Whoa, whoa, whoa. You're saying we can't stay here?" The man Harry assumed was the father said, obviously not one who listened to instructions because Harry was pretty sure he did say they couldn't stay there. Maybe the man was a little slow.
"It's a health hazard. You don't want to," Dean told him, trying to sound understanding but firm.
"Hold up. We just drove four hundred miles." The other adult male in the group walked over, Harry eyeing him up and down and then dismissing him. Not someone who would pay for his services. Or someone who clearly listened.
"There's a motel just down the road. 'Til this gets cleaned up, I suggest you stay there," Dean told them, not leaving them any room to argue.
"All right. And what if we don't?"
"Asbestosis isn't a laughing matter, sir. People have died from it. Children being more at risk than adults. You want to risk your family's lives just because you don't want to stray on the side of caution and spend another night in a motel?" Harry really hoped asbestosis was what he thought. And lethal. He should have maybe thought about this line of lying before going ahead with it.
"One night. One night, and I'll take care of everything, ASAP, I promise," the older man said to them, turning to look at his family, who really didn't look all that impressed with his decision. Given they didn't know Harry was lying, they were disturbingly flippant with their health.
"Yeah, you do that," Dean agreed, looking at Sam and Dean then back to the family.
"Another motel? Awesome, Dad. I hope this one has hooker sheets, like the last one." Harry and Dean both shot the daughter (or kidnapped female minor, who was Harry to assume?) a slightly insulted look. Though probably for different reasons.
"Danny!" Harry looked around for whoever Danny might be and watched as the younger son (or yet another kidnapped minor) ran back over to his family with the dog and then got in the car with his family.
Harry stood with Sam and Dean watching them drive away and gave a small sigh of relief before turning back to face the brothers and see if they knew what to do next.
"Asbestosis?"
"What? It's a thing! It's exists! I didn't make it up!" Harry said, not admitting that he had no idea what it was.
"Right. Well, whatever, it worked," Dean begrudgingly admitted, then he glanced at the house behind them. "So we got nothing here. I say we head over to the woman that found the body. The cleaner, right?"
"She's not a suspect, yeah? Like… Leon-style cleaner?" Harry asked with a grin, following Dean and Sam back to the Impala.
"Dude, we're cutting off your TV watching privileges."
"What did the room look like when you found it, Mrs Curry?" They had headed back to where Mr Gibson's house cleaner lived in order to see if she could tell them something that might tell them on who it was that killed the man. Not that Harry was totally convinced it was a spirit but even he admitted that was only skeptic just to be awkward.
"I already told the local boys, there was blood everywhere," Mrs Curry told them, sounding a little annoyed to be questioned by them. Not that Harry blamed her.
"And Mr Gibson - where was he?"
"Everywhere," Mrs Curry told them, not sounding quite as upset as Harry would think someone who had just found their employer eviscerated would sound.
"How long have you been cleaning Mr Gibson's house?" Sam asked her looking for all the world like he was taking notes, though Harry suspected he was more likely playing noughts and crosses. Sam struck him as the type to play that by himself.
"About five years," she told him, looking at Harry curiously - probably because Harry had decided to stay quiet during this as he really had no idea what to ask her that would give them a heads up - and Harry just smiled at her weakly.
"So you knew him pretty well."
"Well, not really well. He was real private. Not the easiest man. Not that I blame him."
"Ooh. What do you mean?" Harry asked, finally finding something he could ask that wouldn't make Dean or Sam want to thump him for possibly setting them back. He still stood strong that asbestosis was a thing.
"His wife dies in childbirth. Daughter hangs herself in the attic twenty years later. I'd be bitter, too. I think I got some pictures," she told them before she wandered off into another room to go and fetch them for them. Before any of them could possibly say anything about the case, she had come back and was handing the photos to Harry. He had no idea why him, possibly because he asked the question that led to her getting them. Or she just liked him more. He didn't blame her. He was pretty charming.
"Cheers. Would it be okay if we kept these?" Harry asked her, deciding that he should at least be a little courteous towards her, if only so she would end up liking him more than Dean. Charming bastard normally out did him on charming their targets.
"Suit yourself."
"Now, why'd the daughter kill herself?" Sam asked her before Harry could actually thank her, which made Harry glare at the back of Sam's head, much to Dean's amusement.
"I don't know. That was before my time."
"Did you ever notice anything odd in the house when you were cleaning it?" Dean asked her and Harry rolled his eyes at Dean's incredible subtlety.
"Like what?"
"Like, you know, like lights going on and off, things not being where you left them…" Dean prompted, trailing off and watching Mrs Curry for any hint that she knew what he was talking about. Much to Harry's shock she actually did.
"Maybe there was one thing."
"What's that?" Harry asked, completely unable to stop himself due to the shock of her actually answering Dean and not just throwing them out of her house for wasting her time.
"Well, sometimes, I thought I heard like a… rustling in the walls."
"Like a rat?" Dean asked, looking like he fervently hoped she would disagree with him. Harry grinned at this little insight to something Dean might be scared of and mentally stored it in the back of his mind.
"Yeah." Harry held back a cackle when Dean shuddered at that.
"Must have been huge rats out there, huh?" Harry asked eagerly, grin widening when Dean caught on to what he was doing and glared at him.
"Wouldn't know. Never saw any," Mrs Curry told him with a shrug.
"Do you happen to know where Mrs Gibson and her daughter were buried?" Sam asked her, dragging her attention away from Harry and Dean, who were mouthing petty insults at one another.
"They were both cremated." Harry and Dean both stopped insulting one another when they heard Mrs Curry and turned to look at her then looked at Sam, who looked just as flummoxed as they did.
"Right! Well, I think that's everything we need. Thank you for helping us, Mrs Curry," Harry told her with a bright smile, pushing the photos he still had in his hands into his pocket and shaking Mrs Curry's hand. Sam and Dean both did the same before all three of them left the house and headed back to the Impala.
"So…" Harry muttered, glancing from Sam to Dean and then back again, figuring that Sam was going to be the likely one to have an answer on where to go next.
"Yeah. So it probably wasn't the mom or the daughter. Whose ghost was it?" Sam asked, completely ruining Harry's beliefs that he would know what to do and leaving him wondering just what they were going to do then, because he'd never really liked going into anything blind. One thing he'd never liked about the hunts the brothers went on.
"I don't know. But I say we give that place a real once-over and see," Dean said, and they got into the Impala to head back to the house that may or may not be haunted by some unknown dead person.
Dean drove up to the end of the driveway leading to the house and stopped when they saw that there were lights on inside. Harry mentally groaned, wondering why none of them could ever get a break. Together their luck sucked.
"Crap. So, what now?" Dean asked, sitting back in his seat and looking at Sam and then Harry in the back seat. Harry just shrugged and sighed loudly, mentally sending up a plea for a break, until recalling what Yebemiah had told him and realising that right now, no one was listening.
Which was just plain depressing.
"We could tell them the truth," Sam suggested, which got him the snort of contempt it deserved from both Harry and Dean.
"Oh yeah, brilliant idea. We lie to them about their house being lethal and then we tell them that, actually, it's not asbestosis they have to worry about, but a ghost-"
"Spirit."
"Whatever. And, to top it all off, we don't actually know who the dead murderous person is and thus can't actually stop them. Yup. Uh huh. Drive on up, Dean. Let's go get thrown in the nut house."
"Alright, I wasn't actually being serious. No need to be so damn sarcastic about it," Sam muttered, crossing his arms over his chest and slumping down in a sulk. Dean looked at Sam and began to chuckle, shaking his head.
"Fine, fine. I'm sorry for being too British. Happy? So what are we going to do then?"
"Sit here and wait? Spirit-dude is gonna show itself at some point, right? And when it does, I'm betting someone screams," Dean said with a nod.
"My bet's on the girl. She looked like she'd scream if a particularly large spider looked at her wrong. A spirit is bound to make her scream," Harry said, looking at the house and mentally urging someone to scream.
Over an hour later and Dean suddenly jerked in his seat, which got the attention of Sam and Harry who had been having a quiet game of hangman whilst Dean had dozed. Dean pulled a phone out of his pocket, telling them what it was that had woken Dean up.
"Yeah?"
Harry glanced at Sam, who shrugged, and then looked back at Dean to see if he could work out who it was that was ringing them.
"Yeah, yeah he is. What are you asking for?" Harry perked up, noting that Sam scowled as they both realised Dean was talking to a possible client for Harry at the same time. "Yeah, you're gonna have to email the information you want him to know to the address on the card. … Total? No more than two thousand. … Yeah, he charges extra for knowing background information. … Okay, seven thirty? Got ya. He'll see you tomorrow night then."
Harry watched Dean hang up the phone, glancing to see Sam also had all his attention on Dean as well. Harry had gotten his notebook out so he could take down the relevant information he'd need to know. He'd gotten a new notebook and it felt depressingly empty of both jobs and useful numbers that his last one had in abundance.
"So?"
"Yeah, you got a background date with a Jeannie Minks in Seattle tomorrow night, so you're gonna have to get one of the angels to take you there. Let's just hope we're done with this hunt by then."
"Pretty sure you'll be able to cope without me if we aren't," Harry pointed out lightly as he wrote down the details and then looked back at Dean. "She say she was going to email me what I need to know?"
"Nah, she said she could tell you the main bits that you'd need to know. You're taking her to a work meal or something. You're to go to her house and the meal isn't until eight. So you've got half an hour to get to know her," Dean told him with a shrug, glancing over at the house, from where there hadn't been a peep all night, then back to look at Harry again.
"Ah, it'll be a doddle then," Harry muttered with a nod, making a note to call Ardifiel or Castiel, whichever one came to him. He hoped one of them did as he didn't really feel all too comfortable calling for Yebemiah. A feeling he was quite aware didn't exactly make sense.
He was interrupted in his musings, however, when there was a scream from the house. Dean jerked into action, starting the car and driving it down the road and pulling up in front of the house. All three then jumped out of the car and up to the front door, Dean knocking on it.
"We heard screams. What's going on?" Dean demanded, pushing his way into the house as soon as the older man opened it. Sam and Harry quickly followed him inside, Harry closing the door behind him as a sign of good manners.
"Oh, you three! Did you touch my daughter?" The man who'd opened the door to them demanded, making Sam, Dean and Harry all pause and stare at him like he was insane.
"What? No!"
"Who are you guys?"
"Relax, please. You have a ghost!" Harry told them, ignoring Sam's mutter of 'spirit' under his breath and instead focusing on the strange looks he was now getting.
"A ghost."
"I told you!" The daughter whined, and Harry bit his tongue not to grin and say he'd told them about who it would be to scream. He knew she didn't have a strong stomach.
"It's the girl!" The son yelled, getting all of their attention. Harry could have sworn Sam had once told him that cremated people generally, as a rule, didn't come back to haunt you due to the whole lack of remains thing. This case was going to give him a headache, he just knew it.
"Both of you, relax," the dad told his kids before turning to face Harry and the Winchesters. "What are you guys playing?"
"Your family's in danger. You need to get out of the house now," Dean told him urgently, getting back up in the urgency by the lights making a timely exit and plunging them into darkness.
"What the hell?" The other man yelled suddenly, like it wasn't obvious. Harry was glad for the darkness because it meant no one saw him roll his eyes.
"Nobody move!" Dean shouted, making the family in front of them all freeze and stare at him. Harry's eyes had gotten used to the dark quickly, something he had learnt to do back when he was a child locked in a small cupboard.
"Buster!" Harry wondered who the bloody hell Buster was when the son had yelled out, only to get his answer by the sound of howling outside. Harry winced, pretty sure that no healthy animal made sounds like that, but followed anyway when the two men ran outside, followed by Sam and Dean. Harry sighed, figuring he could at least try and keep the Winchesters alive.
"Buster? Buster!"
"What the hell?" Harry caught up with them as they came across a trail of blood on the floor, the younger of the two men shining a torch on it and following it to the moving van. On the side of it, in blood, someone had written 'too late'.
"Buster!" Harry spun around to see that the rest of the family had come outside of the house and wondered if he should try to stop the son from seeing his pet's blood used as a marker pen. Thankfully the boy's father moved to stop the boy from coming over to them.
"Go back inside! Go!"
"We are not the bad guys, but you're in danger," Dean told the father quietly as they watched the rest of the family members standing at the bottom of the porch steps huddled together. Harry kept glancing around them, ever aware that they were in the open and far from safe.
"First thing's first. You got to get your family out of here," Sam told the father and Harry really hoped that the stubborn man actually listened to them this time.
"Head to the motel I was talking about. You'll be safe there," Dean told him as they made their way to where the cars were. Harry following cautiously behind them, not being able to shake the feeling that they were being watched. This hunt wasn't shaping out to be like any of the other hunts he'd been on with either just Sam or both brothers. Though admittedly, they had mostly hunted demons and Harry openly admitted that he had no idea how to deal with demons.
"What are you three gonna do?"
"Oh no! Oh, come on! Come on!!" Dean shouted, not answering the dad. Harry looked over and cursed, seeing the tyres of all the cars had been slashed.
"Dude, the guns are gone. So are the… basically, everything is gone," Sam called from where he'd been looking in the trunk of the car.
"What?! Even mine?!" Harry demanded, running over to Sam and seeing the empty trunk. "Fuckers! What the fuck?! It took George?! George, Sam! That is it, we are burning this mother to the ground!"
"Trucks no good!" The younger of the two men announced, interrupting Harry's raging though giving him a wary look as he walked up to them.
"Both tyres slashed."
"What kind of ghost messed with a man's wheels?!" Dean demanded
"Never mind the damned cars! It took my weapons! Do you know how much money and how many laws I broke to get them? They're like my children! My sharp, pointy, lethal children!" Harry hissed, glaring as he looked around him, still feeling like he was being watched and wanting to find who it was.
"What's going on? What's going on?" The young girl shouted over to them and then suddenly screamed shrilly, pointing to something behind them. "She's there! She's there!"
"Where?" Her mother looked at where she was pointing, Harry also looking and not seeing anything, beginning to get an uncomfortable feeling about it all.
"She was right there in the woods!"
"What's a ghost doing outside?" Dean whispered to them, sounding and looking confused as he glanced to where the girl had seen the ghost.
"Do we want to stay and find out?" Harry asked, keeping a wary look around him for any sign of the ghost or whatever it was. Harry was beginning to think what they were hunting wasn't a ghost.
And it was hunting them back.
"Good point," Dean nodded, then turned back to the scared family huddled in front of the house. "Everybody inside!"
"Are you crazy? We need to get the hell out of here!" The younger man snapped, and Harry was beginning to think they should just learn the names of the family members.
"In what?! The ghost is hunting us! Everybody back inside now! Move it!" Harry yelled back at them, not stopping with his constant searching and knowing that it probably made him paranoid. But it'd helped him survive thus far so he was beyond caring what others thought.
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